Paul's gospel is described/identified in a number of ways throughout Acts and his letters.
Reference |
Descriptions and synonyms of the gospel. |
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Acts 9:15 |
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Acts 9:20 |
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Acts 9:22 |
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Acts 9:27 |
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Acts 9:28 |
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Acts 13:5 |
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Acts 13:12 |
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Acts 13:26 |
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Acts 13:32 |
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Acts 13:38,39 |
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Acts 13:43 |
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Acts 14:3 |
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Acts 14:7 |
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Acts 14:15 |
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Acts 14:22 |
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Acts 15:26 |
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Acts 16:6 |
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Acts 16:10 |
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Acts 17:2 |
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Acts 17:18 |
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Acts 18:4 |
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Acts 18:5 |
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Acts 19:8 |
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Acts 20:21 |
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Acts 20:24 |
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Acts 20:25 |
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Acts 20:27 |
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Acts 22:18 |
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Acts 24:24 |
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Acts 26:16 |
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Acts 26:17,18 |
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Acts 26:20 |
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Acts 28:23 |
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Acts 28:31 |
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Rom 1:1,2 |
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Rom 1:5 |
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Rom 1:9 |
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Rom 10:8 |
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Rom 15:19 |
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Rom 16:25-26 |
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1Cor 1:18 |
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1Cor 1:23 |
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2Cor 3:6 |
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2Cor 4:5 |
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2Cor 5:19 |
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2Cor 11:6 |
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Gal 1:6 |
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Gal 1:16 |
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Gal 1:24 |
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Eph 3:8 |
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Col 1:23 |
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Col 4:3 |
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Titus 1:1-3 |
Paul states clearly in Galatians 2:14 that Peter and those who followed his example in Antioch, and separated themselves from fellowship with Gentile Christians 'were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel' . In other words, their actions denied and contradicted the very Gospel which they had embraced and which they preached. In reporting to the Galatians what he said to Peter Paul uses the words he said to Peter to also point out to the Galatians the wrongness of their submission to the demands of the false teachers.
In defence of the Gospel Paul said to Peter:
Paul is pointing out the gross incongruity of what Peter and the others did. Because of the gospel they had ceased to live as Jews; in fact they had been living as Gentiles - no longer subject to the great multitudes of ritual and ceremonial laws of Judaism, because they knew these laws had been fulfilled and made redundant by Jesus Christ. Yet, by their action in separating from the Gentile believers when the Jewish Christians came to Antioch, they are making a statement that those laws still have significance, and thus they are undermining and living contrary to the gospel they claim to believe.
Speaking of himself, Peter and the other defectors, Paul states that they, people who were born Jews, know that a man is not justified - that is acquitted by God - by observing the law. They know that such justification comes only by faith in Jesus Christ. All of their lives prior to their conversion to Christ they had been striving to obtain a righteousness with God by their own efforts in keeping the requirements of the law. They had forsaken that for faith in Christ.
They have already exchanged an uncertain impossibility for a certainty. As Paul states in Romans 'no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law ... ' (Romans 3:20) and he goes on to expand on this impossibility and the opposing glorious certainty of God's gift of justification/righteousness apart from law (Romans 3:21-31).
This is automatic - because Christ died for sinners, paying the price of their sins. To accept his substitutionary death for sin is to admit one's own sinfulness and inability. This in no way indicates that 'Christ promotes sin', as was obviously being inferred by the Judaisers; rather the death of Christ for sin demonstrates beyond anything else how abhorrent sin is to God and who horrible its penalty. To leave aside the ritual laws, as the Jewish believers had been doing before this incident was not 'sin'.
This proof of identity happens at three possible levels:
In a strictly legal sense, the one who is united to Christ by faith is united to him in his death for sin - the death exacted by the law upon those who break the law. In these verses Paul expresses this identification with Christ in his death in a number of ways:
Legally, as far as God's law and its penalty is concerned, those to whom the substitutionary death of Christ has been credited, have ceased to exist. They can never again be held accountable by the law and its demands. The law required the death penalty: in Christ our substitute that penalty was exacted to the full. [This is dealt with extensively in Romans 6 and 7, and also in Colossians 2 and 3].
From that point onwards the believer lives in a totally different relationship with God. Paul says:
So Paul says: 'I live' - in the presence of God I live - not fearing death, not with the penalty of the law hanging over me - but by faith in the Son of God who loved me and demonstrated that love by giving himself for me.
This is something that Paul says he does not do, and it highlights the incongruity and the lunacy of the line of action adopted by Peter and his companions and of the Galatians who have allowed themselves to be taken in by the false teaching.